Friday MMA Blog

May 8, 2009

Friday, 9:45 p.m. ET:Bryan
Vetell failed to make weight Friday in Ohio’s capital city,
coming in well over the 265-pound limit.

The IFL veteran exited the scales at a robust 278.5 pounds, while
his opponent, Phil
Friedman, registered a weight of 259.5. After much discussion
with his handler, K-1 mainstay Ray Sefo,
Friedman withdrew his name from Saturday’s fight card, which takes
place at the Ohio Expo Center.

By Jake Rossen (jrossen@sherdog.com)Friday, 5:01 p.m. ET: The sourpuss
anti-MMA state of New York is slated to look even more Jurassic in
attitude. Both Alabama
and
South Carolina are taking steps to sanction full-contact
fighting in the coming months.

South Carolina currently has a ban on mixed-style events, but a
proposal to have the state athletic commission regulate the sport
went unopposed this week; Alabama just voted to create a state
boxing commission that could conceivably oversee other forms of
combat.

Naturally, any refreshing practical thinking must be met with
Scrabble-vomit opposition like
this gem from Post and Courier miser Gene Sapakoff, whose
exhaustively researched editorial proclaims that “we are still not
sure if MMA events are real or fixed” and characterizes the sport
as “bar fights repackaged as entertainment.” He declares horse
racing the “sport of kings” and fighting “the sport of
goofballs.”

Charming, no? If you’re going to make the case MMA is a brutality
contest, it might’ve been wise not to inject horse racing into the
topic. Last time I checked, a fighter doesn’t get a lethal
injection when he breaks a leg.

I’d be curious to see how many events Sapakoff has actually
witnessed and how much of his opinion was formed by 20-second
YouTube clips of 15-year-olds wrestling in their backyard.

“Ain’t no bitin!’” Watching the handheld camera footage of Kevin "Kimbo
Slice" Ferguson and company as they make their way to an
undisclosed East Coast location for possibly the world’s first and
only Internet-bred grudge match may not sound compelling. And it
isn’t.

But it is a curious historical footnote of a time when bare-knuckle
fighting enjoyed an abrupt, fleeting resurrection at the callused
hands of Mr. Slice, who cultivated such attention that he was
subsequently signed by EliteXC and crafted into a primetime network
television star.

Watching him arrive on scene in a gym for a closed-door bout with
Boston cop Sean Gannon
is like getting B-roll of a Charles Bronson movie. It’s raw, kind
of ominous and more than a little lurid. Kimbo, for all his limited
ability as a pugilist, is a hypnotic personality -- even when he’s
ogling women on the street.

1. Coleman’s Dub (UFC Classics 10,
1996)

Audio commentary is a foregone conclusion on most DVD releases
these days, even though directors/producers/actors discussing the
mis en scene of “Van Wilder” doesn’t really appear to validate its
own existence.

The feature is absent on the majority of MMA products, which is a
shame. It would be interesting to get a fighter to narrate a
post-mortem on his performance, as Mark Coleman
proves here by revisiting his first trip into the Octagon at UFC
10. Two minutes in and we learn from a candid “Hammer” that the
UFC’s tale of the tape graphic exaggerated his height and weight,
that he was concerned about opponent Moti
Horenstein’s “Van Damme-style kicks” and that he dismisses his
monstrous physique as “all swelled up” as a result of a bad
diet.

Coleman only adds a voiceover to his own tournament bouts. It would
be nice to have John McCarthy or event organizers cover the other
portions. There’s a lot of history here. It deserves more attention
than it gets.

Asserting custody on one side is Liddell’s trainer, John Hackleman,
who maintains that Liddell will decide what he wants to do over the
summer; standing in opposition is UFC President Dana White, who
refuses to consider a future for Liddell in the ring.

“This is a guy who I love and care about extremely,” White said.
“He comes to my house for Christmas. We go on vacations together.
We’ve been together for years. Getting knocked out consecutively is
not good for your health. You can ask any doctor that. You don’t
have to be a [expletive] rocket scientist to figure that one
out.”

Digression: are rocket scientists really all that smart? I once
knew one who miscalculated the helium in a cryostat by .02 ng/ml,
putting the pressure in the de Laval nozzle off by two centimeters.
What a dummy.

For better or worse, both men appear to be right; even White
himself admits that “I’m not his [expletive] father.” It’s
completely at White’s discretion to allow Liddell to fight in his
organization or not. Liddell is free to pursue other opportunities,
though I’d be shocked if some non-compete contract language
couldn’t keep him on a string for the foreseeable future.

Hackleman’s compromise makes the most sense: “To be honest, even if
Chuck wasn’t fighting the top of the top, he’d still be a big draw
and boxers end their careers that way and there’s no reason MMA
fighters can’t.”

Unfortunately, the UFC only wants possible title contenders.
There’s little interest for one-off fights that don’t have any
relevance to a belt. A shame.

Randleman-Whitehead Added to June 6 Strikeforce

By Jake Rossen (jrossen@sherdog.com)Friday, 1:44 p.m. ET: Strikeforce has
announced a light heavyweight bout for its June 6 program in St.
Louis, Missouri, and it stands an excellent chance of either (a)
being contested on the mat or (b) becoming one seriously mediocre
kickboxing match. Two-time NCAA national champion Kevin
Randleman returns after a prolonged absence to tackle Mike
Whitehead, a three-time All-American.

Friday, 5:00 a.m. ET: With Yoshihiro
Akiyama’s Octagon debut against Alan
Belcher at July 11’s UFC 100 still some ways away, Sherdog.com
took the opportunity to catch Akiyama for an interview before
things got too busy for the stylish international jet-setter. We
talked about all things UFC, Belcher, and of course, the “Sexyama”
phenomenon currently sweeping the MMA “interWebs.”

The full feature with the aforementioned content is forthcoming, so
be sure to prepare your tangerine scarves and banana milk supplies
before it debuts. Until then however, here’s a few bits that didn’t
make the final cut:

SD: The UFC has very little TV presence in
Japan, yet is doing very well on Korean TV. While Dana White has
expressed great interest in "invading" Japan with the UFC, the
politics of the fight scene and MMA's lack of popularity in Japan
make it difficult if not impossible for a foreign company to break
into the Japanese fight business. Thus, the UFC may never come to
Japan. What are your thoughts on that?

Akiyama: Right now in Japan, the MMA bubble has already burst. We
have to revive it, bring it back. I think that if I do well in the
UFC, it might help make MMA a little more popular in Japan. I don’t
know what the UFC is thinking in regard to the Japanese MMA market,
but I do think that if they do come over, the Japanese people will
accept them.

It’s still a business, so I think they will try to plan out a way
to come over to Japan, but I personally would like them to just
come right on over without thinking too much about it.

SD: Lately, fighters from Japan haven't been
doing well in Western cages--the UFC and WEC, combined--leading
some fans to vocally question if Japanese or Asian fighters really
are that strong. The only Asian fighter finding success in the cage
now is someone you're familiar with, Yushin
Okami. What are your thoughts on Asian fighters' recent
performances in the UFC, and do you have a desire to shatter that
stigma that is now developing?

Akiyama: I am aware that a lot of Asian fighters aren’t doing well,
and I’m thinking seriously about it. Because of that, I think it’s
worth fighting because I want to fight on a big stage and overcome
that image.

In the world of MMA, I must admit that foreign fighters are often
physically stronger, and while there’s nothing that we can really
do about that, I think that in response, we have strong spirit, or
‘guts.’ I don’t want to boil it down to just that, but personally,
I’m motivated and I have a will to win. Therefore, as a
representative of Asia, I have a great desire to put on good
performance to overcome the negative stigma.

Reis, Soto on
Weight for Bellator

By Mike Fridley (mike@sherdog.com)Friday, 4:00 a.m. ET:Wilson Reis
(145.5) and Joe Soto
(145.5) made weight on Thursday, making official their headlining
bout for Friday’s Bellator card, which takes place at the Central
Pavilion Arena in Robstown, Texas.

Bellator will air nationally on ESPN Deportes via one-day tape
delay on Saturday, May 9.

Friday, 3:00 a.m. ET: If nothing else,
we know that Penn has a chip on his shoulder roughly the size of
China. The guy has not an ounce of back down in him and the talent
to back up his perpetual motion mouth. If Penn isn’t reading from
the same script as Ken, he must at least have the same agent.

That’s what makes Penn fun to watch, and it’s what makes Ken such a
fan favorite. Talent combined with a borderline unhealthy
appreciation of your own talent will make you a polarizing figure,
and Ken’s perma-smirk and flashy offense took that status to the
extreme. Personally, I can’t remember anyone I loved dropping a
quarter-fueled beating on more than the blonde-haired pretty boy
with the never-ending sneer.

If you want anymore proof that these two are a match, hunt down
Penn and tell him that there’s no way he could ever bust out a
fireball special in the cage. I’ve got $20 that says he spends the
next decade in some Chinese forest and comes out looking to take
you up on your challenge.